"Healing from Family Rifts is a book I had to write.

When my parents and sister decided never again to speak with me or my wife, I was devastated. I just didn't know how to handle my father saying to me, "I'm done. You're never welcome in my home again." I had helped many of my clients to overcome the trauma of a family cut-off, and had developed very specific tools to help them get through the ordeal. When the estrangement couldn't be healed, I helped them to come to peace with the rift. But now I had to do this in my own life. Could I? I looked everywhere for a book on the topic to help me deal with the pain and confusion my own family cut-off had caused me. I could find none. I realized it was up to me to do the work of healing myself.

Healing from Family Rifts is the product of this work -- a collection of stories, one of them my own, about what it means to face and overcome the devastation of family estrangement, with principles and techniques any victim of a family rift can profitably apply to help heal from their wounds and reclaim their lives.

Like my clients, I have finally managed to weather and overcome the worst of this trauma, to prevail over the initial indescribable agony of a family rift and to make meaning of the experience. If you have suffered the trauma of a family cut-off, you too will learn this when you read Healing from Family Rifts."